Suspicious behaviour from husband or paranoid behaviour by me?

[Heysham1]

I’ll keep it brief. Small local jewellery nearby. I often look in the window, but don’t buy anything as I don’t really wear much jewellery (physical job means I don’t wear rings or bracelets in case they catch on something and I run a lot so I don’t generally wear a necklace as a pendant would bounce around!).

For my last birthday, husband bought my a £100 gift voucher for the shop and again, another £100 voucher for Christmas (he may have forgotten about the first). I bought a couple of things, but I don’t think I have actually worn them.

He went away in June for a week’s holiday (he took early retirement and is older than me, I still work). When he returned he bought me 5 small items of jewellery, none of which I have worn. Nothing wrong with anything, just not my style etc.

He is now away again, this time overseas. I found a receipt for jewellery for the same shop, this time for £350 (a silver pendant and drop earrings, which I never wear).
This was dated in June. My birthday is September.

I photographed it and asked it about it. He told me it was for my birthday! He told me the present was in our bedroom (and it was, I found the parcel).

We’ve had a very unstable marriage, not least because I very recently found out that his ‘hobby’ was messaging literally hundreds of women on line. He came across as a sleezy, older man.

Am I just looking for evidence of him cheating (I have accessed all his social media previously and couldn’t find anything. He seemed to just get his kicks from sending the messages).

Or is he simply a pretty crap husband who messages other women and is rubbish about buying gifts?

It just seems so odd that he would buy it in June!!

He was really living in an online fantasy world until I found out and he agreed to get help, so in my mind he has purchased this gift as part of this fantasy.

Just reading this back, I think I sound paranoid, so I may have answered my own question!

Thanks for any thoughts though!

They jewellery and the messages sound like 2 separate issues. Not that the jewellery is an issue, he just doesn’t know your taste very well. As for the messages, that’s disgusting. What are you going to do about that?

Of course you aren't paranoid OP.
If he spends his time messaging other women you have absolutely no idea of how far he goes in cheating on you.
And yes I would suspect the jewellery was for someone else.

He’s a disgusting specimen isn’t he?

Do yourself a favour and dump him.

The jewellery stuff is a red herring. You’ll never know for sure if it was meant for you or not.

What you do know for certain is that he is a sleazy creep who has messaged hundreds of women online. I would lose all respect for my DH as a person if he was doing that. And that would be it for me.

What? Why aren’t you dumping him already?

The question is do you want to spend the rest of your days with him?
He doesn't respect you.
If you have your own money I'd get out now before you have to offer later life care (you mentioned he's older).

Life is for living and he's dishonest.
LTB.

Especially if he's kind of conventional and set in his ways, the jewellery-buying could be innocent. He may have it in his head that buying jewellery for his wife is what he's "supposed" to do or an easy solution to having no idea what you'd actually like. Even if he hears what you're saying, he may rationalise that you can just wear it outside of work hours and take it off when you're working out. The fact that he's given you jewellery and vouchers for a jewellery shop multiple times may support that theory. If he's basically completing a task (buy birthday gift) rather than trying to make you happy or to buy you something you'd love, he may not even notice that you don't use/wear it.

I may be completely off base, but I wonder if you've latched onto this question about the pendant and earrings because you feel on some level like what he has done isn't enough reason to leave him, and cheating would be? If so, then please consider that although it wasn't cheating, what he did that you know about was a breach of trust and implicitly dishonest. He said he'd "get help", but IS he getting it? Is it helping? Are you confident he's stopped? Do you really feel you could trust him and be happy with him again? If not, then I'm not sure it really matters if he's cheating or not.

Thanks all for your honest opinions. This has all come to light pretty recently, so I’m still processing it.

Agree that the jewellery could be a red herring. I’ll never know.

Agree that he is disrespectful and disgusting.

I’m very independent and manage my life well enough. It doesn’t make much difference to me if the marriage ends, other than a huge feeling of sadness and disappointment.

I think you have absolutely nailed it with your first point. He equates gift giving with showing love. All your points are accurate.

He says he will get help. But realistically, it could be months before the counsellor he has found becomes available and as usual, life just goes on.

He does realise I am very close to ending the marriage and that scares him. He has a pretty good life with me and the family. So he knows there has to be some pretty radical changes to get us back on course.

Where did he go on the June holiday? Who with? Any suspicions about that?

he sounds a right charmer!

if my dh was messaging other women then we would be finished.

I think the jewellery is a red herring. If it was for someone else he would have given it to them straight away (if that’s what you’re asking?) Although maybe he was feeling particularly guilty in June and so bought your birthday present early to make himself feel better.

Honestly though the messages would be enough to end the marriage. Aside from the unfaithfulness aspect of it, it displays his belief that women are there for his gratification. I’m not sure “counselling” to make you less of a sleazebag exists to be honest.

editing to add that waiting for a counsellor is a nice low effort way of saying he’s doing something, without actually doing anything at all.

Good point about the counseling. I thought the same thing. It’s easy to promise all sorts of stuff, but as the weeks go by, it gets lost in day to day life.

No, away with friends. Definitely all above board.